In the process of shipping an item from one location to another, a protective packaging material is typically placed in the shipping container to fill any voids and/or to cushion the item during the shipping process. Some commonly used protective packaging materials are plastic foam peanuts and plastic bubble pack. While these conventional plastic materials seem to perform adequately as cushioning products, they are not without disadvantages. Perhaps the most serious drawback of plastic bubble wrap and/or plastic foam peanuts is their effect on our environment. Quite simply, these plastic packaging materials are not biodegradable and thus they cannot avoid further multiplying our planet's already critical waste disposal problems. The non-biodegradability of these packaging materials has become increasingly important in light of many industries adopting more progressive policies in terms of environmental responsibility.
These and other disadvantages of conventional plastic packaging materials have made paper protective packaging material a very popular alternative. Paper is biodegradable, recyclable and renewable; making it an environmentally responsible choice for conscientious companies.
While paper in sheet form could possibly be used as a protective packaging material, it is usually preferable to convert the sheets of paper into a low density cushioning product. This conversion may be accomplished by a cushioning conversion machine, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,026,198; 4,085,662; 4,109,040; 4,237,776; 4,557,716; 4,650,456; 4,717,613; 4,750,896; and 4,968,291. (These patents are all assigned to the assignee of the present invention and their entire disclosures are hereby incorporated by reference.) Such a cushioning conversion machine converts sheet-like stock material, such as paper in multi-ply form, into low density cushioning pads or dunnage.
A cushioning conversion machine, such as those disclosed in the above-identified patents, may include a stock supply assembly, a forming assembly, a gear assembly, and a cutting assembly, all of which are mounted on the machine's frame. During operation of such a cushioning conversion machine, the stock supply assembly supplies the stock material to the forming assembly. The forming assembly causes inward rolling of the lateral edges of the sheet-like stock material to form a continuous strip having lateral pillow-like portions and a thin central band. The gear assembly, powered by a feed motor, pulls the stock material through the machine and also coins the central band of the continuous strip to form a coined strip. The coined strip travels downstream to the cutting assembly which cuts the coined strip into pads of a desired length.
Typically, the cut pad is transferred downstream to a transitional zone, such as a table, a conveyor, a bin, etc., and is thereafter removed from the transitional zone and inserted within a container for cushioning purposes. In the past, the transitional zone has been positioned beneath the cutting assembly whereby gravity caused the pad to fall towards the transitional zone, or, in other words, away from the cutting assembly. Additionally or alternatively, the approaching coined strip would urge the cut pad in this direction.
The practice of depending upon the force of gravity and/or the urging of the approaching strip for pad-transferring purposes has, for the most part, been very successful. Nevertheless, applicant appreciated that in certain circumstances (such as high/constant volume cushioning situations), pad-transfer problems sometimes, albeit very rarely, occurred. For example, because of the lightweight nature of the pad, one would occasionally fail to travel downstream to the transitional zone. While, in most instances, the approaching pads would eradicate this failure by pushing the "stalled" pad downstream, periodically the approaching pads would instead "shingle" (i.e., the pads would stack one on top of the other in a shingle-like arrangement). Such shingling (although itself uncommon) would usually result in the "jamming" the cushioning conversion machine and this jamming would almost always translate into machine downtime.
Further, problems could arise from the accumulation of a large number of pads in the transitional zone, such as on a conveyor. While the use of a conveyor generally works well in conveying formed pads away from the cushioning conversion machine, if the conveyor were to become filled with pads, the pads would tend to nest or shingle resulting in the difficult removal of the pads from the conveyor and possible damage to the pads.